To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality.

There is one art of which people should be masters - the art of reflection.

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,Reality's dark dream!I turn from you, and listen to the wind,Which long has raved unnoticed.

No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.

Call not that man wretched, who whatever else he suffers as to pain inflicted, or pleasure denied, has a child for whom he hopes and on whom he doats.

An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches with spire steeples which point as with a silent finger to the sky and stars.

I understood that you would take the Human Race in the concrete, have exploded the absurd notion of Pope's Essay on Man, [Erasmus] Darwin, and all the countless Believers-even (strange to say) among Xtians-of Man's having progressed from an Ouran Outang state-so contrary to all History, to all Religion, nay, to all Possibility-to have affirmed a Fall in some sense.